Cape or Un-cape?

[Azure Hanyo]

[quote="Azure Hanyo]... I really don't think she meant to make a jab at you. [/quote]

...it was just the teensiest, tiniest of jabs... [/quote]

Lmao...shhh...I know you were poking him. So it WASN'T a jab...not really...

[Kim S]

I understand why you used the species names. That wasnt what was confusing to me. But you were using big scientific wording and scientific explanations in the sentenses. I lost you.

Just say what part or word confuses you and I'll try to explain differently. I can't really guess what that would be otherwise.

I'll try to give you a clearer picture of what threw me off. But It's mostly to do with the fact that I'm Dutch and scientific English is just a bit too much yet
I cán read it, but it takes me ages and several re-reads before even glimpsing what was meant.

P. Robustus Robustus lives in small high altitude region of South Africa and is becoming quite endangered with remaining populations estimated to be no more than several thousand. A few scientists got some South African government grants and conservation society grants to manipulate some wording to be able to name the P. r. robustus a separate species so that it could be considered an endangered species. The other subspecies are doing pretty well and messing up the overall classification. Imagine a good neighborhood with one square block of poverty and trying to separate that into a different township so that it could be considered in poverty and receive special funding.

I got this part. Took me a long while to read, since it has long sentenses with lots of 'big' words. Especially the "manipulate some wording" is a term that I have never come across before. I get it thanks to the context. But this happens a lot during this text.
I also noticed that my eyes tend to skip the words when you use the long version of the names.

They proposed two new species of Capes:

P. Robustus and P. Fuscicollis (which would contain the Fuscicollis and Suahilicus subspecies) in order to be able to declare Poicephalus Robustus an endangered species. Most of the evidence they used was based on minute variations in physiology and dna analysis that demonstrated a slightly bigger divergence between p.r.r from p.r.f and p.r.s.. While some scientists jumped on the band wagon and supported the species split so they could get this thing called "money" too, Cites did not buy it and rejects the claim that the two are different species. Based on the evidence given for splitting the species (and the scientists literally said in the paper that the main reason they want to split the species is for the sake of conservation), it is not convincing (based on the definition of a species as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring). Furthermore I have heard rumors of successful/viable mixing of the species but have not found any written evidence to support or reject this.

The first bold sentence took me about 10 reads to get. Too many big words in one large sentence. Second bold sentence. Or should I say second to fourth? One sentence with two in brackets. If you would split that last sentence up in three separate ones, it would read a lot easier.

You see, its not really what you wrote, but hów you wrote it. And people whose mother tongue is English probably won’t have any problems with it.

[lzver]

Very interesting thread! I think I'll have to take more time to read once I'm home from vacation.

Entranced, I'm so excited for you. Careful now .... the poicephalus bug tends to bite hard

[Azure Hanyo]

Careful now .... the poicephalus bug tends to bite hard

Just like the birds.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

OK, here is one thing that isn't clear to me, and I am a native English speaker as well as a fluent Science speaker (Kim, I bet it is more the scientific writing style rather than the non-native tongue -- being a scientist I can understand scientific writing in foreign languages better than casual writing -- more of the terms are the same!). Do the majority here support preservation of the endangered sub-species?

I admit I'm not a big fan of changing names to try to change perceptions, but I do think it would be a shame to let the subspecies die out just because the other subspecies are doing well.

[Kim S]

Why can't a subspecies be called endangered?

[Michael]

The IUCN Red List serves to protect endangered species. Key word, species. When someone hears about a species being critically endangered, things start moving (including money). So while the IUCN has not accepted the species change, the politically motivated organizations that can get a cut have gotten involved. For instance the world parrot trust:

http://www.parrots.org/index.php/ourwor ... pe_parrot/

When they talk about just 1000 Cape Parrots left in the entire world and about isolated populations of Cape Parrots, they are obviously neglecting the West African Capes that are doing fine and otherwise listed as Least Concern. You see how they assume the species split because it suits their purpose. They can solicit much more money from donors for a species bordering on extinction.

Here's my personal view. I absolutely think that research about the P. r. robustus should be underway and that it is a wonderful conservation cause. However, I think it is absurd to try to change the species classification to push this purpose. Leave the science out of the politics. Science should be about finding truth and not fighting over matters that should be left to others. It's just that it's so much easier to market when you can used the "Endangered Species" word. So they need to push out the ok populations to inflate the danger to one sub species. When the Cape Parrot species as a whole is listed as Least Concern in the IUCN, it makes it go unnoticed.

Allow me to quote you the conclusion of Wirminghaus et al (2002):

In conclusion, the behavioral evidence, distribution data, specific habitat requirements and morphological differences presented here support the southern taxon P. r. robustus is a separate species from the northern subspecies P .r. suahelicus and P. r. fuscicollis. Consequently Clancey's proposals are adopted with P. robustus as a separate species from P. fuscicollis. As population numbers of P. robustus are low, recognition of its species status has major implications for its conservation.

Basically he finishes the paper by saying that it was all contrived in order to be able to improve conservation (and therefore research grants) for the study of the P. robustus by knocking the non endangered populations out of the species. I really don't like to see science with an agenda and this Cape Parrot name debate smells full of it.

Also I have heard that since South Africa accepted the Cape Parrot as a separate species (I'm sure it's nice to be a government with a beautiful and one of kind bird that you can call endangered only in your country and then pretend to make efforts to save it), that poaching the birds has actually increased drastically. When they were previously considered the same species, it was just easier to trap the more frequent fusicollis and suahlilicus Capes. But now that some people consider these a different species, they are in high demand for collectors of endangered species.

What I would like to see is an accurate classification of the species and then the necessary conservation and research measure go into place regardless of the classification. Simple fact is that the P. r. robustus is a critically endangered group of birds (whether you call them a species or not) and efforts to stop the deforestation of their habitat and research them are good causes. But changing the name and derailing scientific efforts to research and understand them merely for the political causes of fund raising is unethical and counter productive.

[Rue]

...this is probably a dumb question, but I'm excusing myself on the basis of spending the morning with my 15-year old... He's good at making me think I'm an idiot...and then my brain goes on strike in some twisted effort to prove him right...

Have they done a DNA comparision yet? That should shed some light on things...

[Michael]

They have. It's unpublished (unless something has changed without my knowing). It demonstrates a greater divergence between P. r. r. and P. r. f.

P. r. s and P. r. f. are more similar to each other than to P. r. r.

However, I don't believe there is a standard for DNA divergence for species classification. The traditional definition of a species is a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring. It does not seem right to me to try to change the definition of a species in order to suit the research. Since reading up about this Cape Parrot debate stuff, I've been doubting the concept of a species myself and have spent hours discussing it with a knowledgeable professor.

At this point I no longer know what a species is any more and this stuff makes less sense than ever before. The only well accepted definition of a species is the one I mentioned and if we go by that one, then they are the same species. I've heard unofficial evidence that there has been successful crossing between the subspecies but have not seen any documentation to prove or disprove this. What good is the DNA evidence though? It only says what we already know. The P. r. r. is more distinct but still more similar than any other species. That just puts us back to the same dilemma. How do you determine how much DNA variation there must be to split a species?

Once you try to use visible or even DNA variation to determine species, you are going to get into a lot of trouble coming up with a standard. Look at dogs for instance! There are so many breeds that you could hardly believe are the same species while on the other hand there are birds that are different species merely on the basis of a slightly different hue on one part of their body. The ability to produce viable offspring is just about the only objective and indisputable (well it is but on a different level) way to classify living species.

[Rue]

Yes...I tend to go by the not being able to produce viable offspring definition of species too...but now with DNA being the new measure of what's what I thought maybe someone was establishing guidelines based on percentage of relatedness instead...

Be interesting to watch and see how it all plays out...